Bella and Gabriel - A conversation (Patreon)

The stack that was dropped on upon the slick table echoed around the chamber with a deep boom.  Several books, a thick envelope filled with parchment, and several stone tablets, now took up residency on the obsidian desk before Belladonna.  The piece of furniture had been the first thing she had moved to her little tower. After chucking every item that belonged to Kavatti, out an open window.

Leaning back in her velvet lined chair, Belladonna crossed one leg over the other, raising a perfectly manicured brow at Gabriel. “Warden,” she said in greeting.

“Baron.” He stood at attention, hands folded behind his back and gaze set resolutely forward, not meeting her eyes.

Belladonna rolled her eyes at the formality before nodding towards the paraphernalia he saw fit to scatter across her workspace. “Would you care to give me an explanation?”

“You are expected to read this material before your first Baron meeting near the full moon.  There will be no quiz but I do suggest an effort to at least know the rules before engaging in any sort of political conversation with the others. Upon arriving, you will be sworn in, which usually is a blood right, but the Book Baron has suggested that perhaps that is not what should be done for a vampire so recently gorged on blood.  So it will be more symbolic than an actual swearing in.”

Belladonna stared at him, amusement curling at the corner of her lips. “Do I get an honorary plaque that makes me a part of the Big Boys club?”

“There are women in this club too so I would say not.”  Tapping the leather volume, Gabriel brushed past the obvious eye roll on her part. “I would start with this.  It is what I use the most for calling order in such situations when all Barons are allowed to be in the same room.”

The volume in question was thick and dusty and looked as if it had not been cracked open for centuries. “You cannot possibly believe the Barons are reading these handouts.”

“I believe the Baron of the Books has, yes. Though he has said he used them as kindling.” Belladonna would read them. They both knew she would. Whether she admitted to it was another story all together.  “I shall see you in the upcoming days in case you have any questions,” he said.  Turning, his task apparently done, Gabriel made to leave.

“Reese sent flowers,” Belladonna said, effectively halting his departure. There was a large vase of deep plum roses filled with lily of the valley and night blooming jasmine. Belladonna’s favorites. “And Elias sent a mirror that screams every time I look into it,” she said with a tight smile.

Gabriel sighed. “I will talk to him.”

“No. It’s honestly the nicest thing he has sent me. But, will talk to him. It is time Elias and I have a bit of a reckoning.” She was examining her nails but looking at his corded back at the same time. Monitoring his comfort and wondering if he was simply about to bolt.

“Don’t kill him.”

“I can make very little promises there.”

Turning, Gabriel looked at her with tired eyes. “Bells.”

“Fine,” she said primly.

Standing, Belladonna walked around her desk, perching herself on the corner of it. Gabriel stood at alert still, in full Warden mode, as if awaiting an order from his superior.  Belladonna had always hated that stance and he knew it.

“Dear heart is correct, you know,” she said after a long moment.

“They often are.”  His words were short and clipped as he kept his time with her as professional as possible.  It was that tone that he knew Belladonna hated, however, and even he could see the way her nails tapped against any available surface in a staccato rhythm of irritation.

“Please stop being the Warden for a moment.”

He lifted his gaze towards hers. “And who would you like me to be then, Ms. Malady?” he asked tightly.

“My friend.”

It took a long minute. One in which Gabriel was clearly warring with himself, unable to decide if this was the road he wished to take.  Belladonna waited, her eyes still trained upon him but not demanding.  When his shoulder relaxed, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Pulling up a chair, Gabriel sat in front of her. Belladonna curled her legs beneath her, still using the desk as her seat. She rounded her back, forcing herself into something more relaxed. With effort, the two of them tried hard to mimic who they had once been. Back when conversation had flowed freely and council was sought out of respect and not force.

“I am willing to attempt friendship,” Gabriel said slowly. “But I do ask that you do not press about our past. Not yet. I am not ready to look at that with anything other than anger.”

“I do not shy away from your anger, Gabriel. In fact, I highly wish you would get angry more.”  Gabriel didn’t look as if he agreed and remained silent on the matter. Shifting, Belladonna paused, still letting his words linger. “You know, I think that is the first time that you managed to state your needs to me without an apology.”  When began to bristle, she held up her hand. “That was not a criticism, Gabriel. I am proud of you for that.  You need to do far more of that.”

He took a moment.  It always took a while to shed the visage of the powerful man that policed the market. But there was effort. There had been so much effort given to change lately and it was leaving him feel raw. “I am proud of you, too,” he finely said. Belladonna raised a brow at him. “Kavatti,” he said in simple explanation.

Belladonna grinned. “You never did like her.”

“From the day we met her, yes.  Duplicitous little bloodsucker was playing you and I from the very beginning.”

Belladonna laughed loudly at that, shedding some of the fear she had been harboring deep within over her decade long grudge. “There you are.”

“I have always been here,” he said succinctly. “I have just been angry at you. What you did was not necessary.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about the past.”

“You had no right to do what you did,” he snapped at her. The soft tentative middle ground they had been forming was ripped away with his words as the past came hurling towards them, breaking through the dam they had patched for far too long.

“I wish I had done better by you,” she said.

“Then why didn’t you?” His silver gaze was heated, and his fingers curled along the chair arm. “You could have said something to me. You did not have to–”

“I did,” she interrupted. “I told you to leave several times.  You refused to listen.”  Belladonna had all but begged for him to go out into the world. Find what brought him joy.  And each time he had looked back at her with a dying expression. As if his wings were being cut from his back al over again.

“Then you should have made me,” he hissed.

Eyes flashing crimson, she looked at him sharply, feeling the recent consumption of blood flushing her skin.  “What do you think that night was?”

“A display of how little our friendship truly meant to you.”

“You truly believe that?” she looked at him incredulously.  “I risked everything that evening. I hated myself when I saw the look in your eyes.  What we had was– the family that you offered me.  I lost it all that night, Gabriel. And if I had seen any other was I would have done it but I felt as if I was killing you by keeping you at my side.”

“Instead,” he said cruelly,  “you nearly killed me by sending me out into the world. Angry and alone.”

“You think that’s what I did?” she laughed. “Who do you think the donor was for your position within the market, Gabriel? Who do you think paid the dues and had your name spread like wildfire through the streets.”

He looked at her with dawning horror. The sudden job withing the guard. The promotion only weeks later. The absolute unwavering support from people he had never even met. “I did not ask you to do that.”

“You're correct. But, I did it because I knew you were the right man for the job and you were never going to see it yourself.”

Standing, Gabriel took a heated step towards her.  “You say that you wanted me to live for me but did you ever once consider that by your side was where I wanted to be?”

“I considered it,” she said evenly.  “But being by my side never once meant that you should continue to kneel at my feet.”

“I wasn’t–” he turned from her, needing to place distance between them. What he remembered of their time and what she twisted it into now felt two very different scenarios.  He didn’t know in which the truth lied and for a man like Gabriel who dealt in absolutes, he could not fathom that there may not be one.  “You speak of wanting me to become my own man but you do not respect my own wishes.”

“Not when they are hurting you, no.”

“I would never dream to do the same to you,” he told her.  “I sat and watched you throw yourself repeatedly into danger for the strangled attempt at power.  I never once said a thing, however.  Because I trusted you. I trusted that you would know if it was too much.”

“Did you now?” she laughed. “You never once had an issue with what I was doing? You never once demanded that I do better?”  He was silent.  “When I was whoring, sleeping with individuals far more powerful than I, who could so easily hurt me, what did you do, Gabriel?”

“The two situations are not similar.”

“Are they not?” she laughed mirthlessly. “Low self-esteem and the reliance on makeshift love may wear different masks but they tend to be much the same when you rip all the pieces away.”

They stared at each other, silver eyes meeting crimson and the air around them cracking with light and the flutter of wings.

“Are you?” he demanded.

She drew back. “Am I what?”

“Still whoring?”

Pushing from the table she shook her head. “By the Knowing, Gabriel.” Walking away from him, her back to his own, she rested her face in her hand.  Her shoulders were bunched and the long line of her tattooed spine shifted beneath her skin.  The monster inside restless after such slaughter.

When her laughter began to trickle through the room, Gabriel startled. It began low before it echoed across the bell tower, wrapping around the darkness and driving it away.  Turning, she looked at him, amused.

“You’re an idiot,” she told him.

He blinked at her, staring as she continued to laugh at him.  When his own smile cracked across his face, he couldn’t help it.  Laughter began to rumble through him as well.

“I believe we both may be,” he said.

Coming back over to him, Belladonna sighed, leaning against the desk.  She crossed her arms in front of herself, letting the argument and the past roll down her skin. She could see Gabriel do the same.

“It’s ironic, you know,” she said, staring up at the rafters above and wondering if she could get better lighting up there. Kavatti apparently enjoyed living in a cave.  Made sense, given where she came from.  “When you wanted to apologize, you used to bring me books.”

Gabriel glanced down to the stack of Baron reading at her side.  “I brought you several today.” Standing, he reached around her, plucking up the volumes and placing it in her hands. “A comprehensive history of the Night Market.” Taking another, he stacked it on top of the leather-bound novel. “Baron responsibilities. What it means to be a Baron. Rules and Regulations.” He patted the stack that was no in her hand.  “This should be light reading for you.”

“You know this is all fiction, don’t you? There is probably not a single bit of truth in any of these.” She was still looking at them eagerly.

“And I am sure you will extensively mark each passage you find to be wrong and our next meeting with be a lengthy one.”  Sighing, he looked at her, perhaps for one of the first times in a long while.  “I wish to be better, Bells.”

She nodded. “Because of our dear heart?”

Partially.  They both knew everything had changed the moment they had stepped foot in the market. That this moment had been brewing since that fateful day.  “For me,” he said softly.

Setting the books aside, Belladonna tipped her chin upwards, looking at him, hopefully. “Well, Warden, I cannot wait to see who you become.”

He smiled gently at her. “And I cannot wait to see the hell you bring down upon this city, Baron.”